Presents a four-step process for staff members interested in designing their own mastery learning program. (Author/JM)

Foreign language study is finding a niche in the elementary school curriculum. Schools now offer Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Swedish, and Japanese, instead of teaching mostly German and the Romance languages. Studies agree that children pursuing foreign languages show more creativity, divergent thinking, and higher-order thinking skills and score…

For nearly 20 years, a Delaware school district has been building and evaluating an inclusive classroom model, Team Approach to Mastery. Resource rooms were gradually eliminated, and disabled students were educated alongside their nondisabled classmates. Mainstreaming strategies included team teaching, learning centers, ego groups (to develop…

Describes the Piscataway Project, a school-based action research project focused on development, implementation, and evaluation of instructional approaches to violence prevention. Discusses challenges associated with school-based prevention efforts. Stresses the importance of theory for prevention efforts, and how critical delivery and training…

A collaborative, holistic, and integrated approach to workplace education is needed to deal with a complex workplace and world. Critical elements include financial and organizational commitment to education and training, comprehensive program evaluation, balanced emphasis on worker skills, a challenge to the deficit model, and alternatives to the…

The American population is constantly evolving, as are its needs for family life education. We discuss how family life educators can address issues of diversity in developing and conducting programs for families. Domains for change are suggested in which educators can incorporate cultural competence in their daily work. Four general strategies are…

Unlikely as it might seem, a simple request from music teachers to borrow musical instruments can be the beginning of a productive teaching and learning experience for students at their school. With a set of stringed and band instruments from their local music store, every student at a given grade level can have the chance to perform on an…

Many theorists espouse the need for creativity to be taught within the school environment, but few exemplars exist as to how this can be achieved. Indeed, this is not a development that can happen overnight; it requires a great deal of focused thought and revision, and classroom-based leaders who are willing to take risks and create a new vision…

Virtual Schooling (VS) for K-12 school students using distance technologies has increased rapidly in the 21st century with the growth of online learning and virtual schools in more than 44 states in the USA and as e-learning in over 20 clusters of rural schools in New Zealand. Although VS requires a special set of teaching methods, teacher…

In this report, the author shares her perspective on ten years of science-rich programming for high school youth at the American Museum of Natural History. This report includes: (1) A discussion of the theory of action and the rationale that underlies the AMNH youth programs; (2) A description of three of the programs that have been offered and…

The E-Language Learning (ELL) project is an ongoing collaborative effort between the US Department of Education and the Chinese (PRC) Ministry of Education. Its purpose is to develop a free, online language-learning opportunity for students in the two countries. Developers in the US are now in the process of creating a program to teach English to…

Interest in improving the quality of professional development in this age of educational reform has intensified as a growing body of research suggests that teaching practices matter in terms of student achievement. Some have argued for embedding professional development in the context of teachers' work in order to transform both teaching practices…

Tallahassee's New Adventure in Learning project seeks to show that positive thinking can generate important advances in the classroom. (Editor)

Five areas are suggested for individualized instruction. (HB)

This paper is a case study of a recently reconceptualized teacher education program which has a critical inquiry base and an emphasis on "language across the curriculum." The paper describes the program's rationale, organization and practice along with a description of the ongoing process of program development. The goal of the Rockhurst…